


In the beginning...

by DragonLover19



Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-30 04:40:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17217152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonLover19/pseuds/DragonLover19
Summary: You were a prince, now you're a shadow.





	In the beginning...

A long long time ago, you swore you would never love again.

After what happened with **_HER_** , you knew love was nothing more than a prison.

The feeling of love was only meant to drag you down into the dark depths where you can never feel happiness again.

Well.

Now that you were free, you swore you were going to do things your way from that point on.

^

The first order of business was… what _were_ you now?

You knew you were dead now. It was obvious when you suddenly opened your eyes to see a dead reflection of yourself looking back at you chained up to the wall.

And, yeesh, seeing that as the first thing you see to wake up too wasn’t a pretty sight. Your old body is thin, down to the bone that you can see your ribs and pelvis taut against your body's blue skin. The little remains of hair on the head were gross and messy and the mouth hung open as it were dry-heaving. Though, you knew it was only because some ribs were broken and you couldn't breathe very well with the chains holding you down. You can tell that you didn’t die peacefully.

It was… sad, seeing yourself like this.

Chained up, rotting with no hope of ever seeing the light again. Having all your future taken away thanks to **_HER_**. Over some stupid mistake of a misunderstanding… and blindness.

You had so much planned for your life. Law school. Marriage. Your first kid. Your first grandchild. All of it was gone now. You couldn’t get it back no matter how much you wanted to. Your future is gone.

As you reach out to close your corpse mouth, you finally see a glimpse at what you are now.

The best way to describe it was a shadow. Or something like it. Your arm was a mass of seemingly dark matter that didn’t stay still. You bring your hand back. Or what was a hand now. You didn’t have the normal five fingers now. Just two stubby looking appendages that were like fingers… you guess? They still moved like fingers when you flexed them. Forward. Back. Side to side.

It was going to be really awkward with just two fingers now. You look to your other arm and find it the same as the first. You have no doubt that the rest of you is like this now. But right now it didn’t matter what you looked like. You needed to get out of there. Being in that place was bringing dark memories to your mind.

It takes you so time to move seeing as you don’t have any legs but a long tail that trails behind you as you slowly work your way to get out of there. And when you do move, you find it very difficult at first before you slowly get used to it. You’re basically dragging yourself along like a worm, but you don’t really care right now. Escaping was your main focus.

Minutes felt like hours before you find the cellar door. It surprises you when you find that it is unlocked when you push against it. Under different circumstances it should have been locked and under heavy guard. When you shove the door wide open, you see why the doors were unlocked and unguarded.

Snow.

Everywhere.

In every direction you could see was covered in snow and ice. Wow. How _long_ had you been down in the cellar? You pull yourself out of the cellar, taking in the surroundings. This wasn’t normal ice and snow you realize. You can sense something in the cold air. Something that felt like it was suffocating and dark.

It felt wrong being in that place.

So, without a second thought or glance, you leave the place behind.

^

When you finally learn how to fly, it’s when you come upon what was left of the village.

The ruins of the frozen town feels like it’s mocking you as you slowly make your way through. You know this village. You knew almost everyone that lived here. You knew the baker, the forger, the librarian, the astronomer, and the florist.

A deep part of you aches as you spotted the stand the young florist stood everyday selling flowers. Her smiling freckled face with her red hair tied in a braid. You were once best friends with her. She was almost like a sister that you never had. Wise, brave, with a dash of humor. And now, her little stand was covered over with ice. Her flowers, trapped within.

It hurts to see this, and you almost start to feel like crying.

But you press on. You can’t stay here. You can still feel that suffocating feeling in the cold. Though, you still felt deeply wounded as you pass by the places you visited when you were alive.

It hurt. There was no going by it. It hurts knowing there was nothing you can do to reverse this. Nothing to fix this horrible mess. There was nothing you can do.

^

You quickly find out that you were not the only one to suffer under **_HER_** wrath.

Your horror is increased when you come upon the frozen bodies of the villagers. You didn’t know they were bodies at first thanks to the ice, and thought they were just weirdly sculpted statues. It was when you accidentally ran into one that you realized they were bodies. The look of fear was all too real on their faces. No sculptor could manage to make any ice look like that.

It was horrible.

Just horrible.

Not even the villagers had survived. At least their deaths were a quick one and not slow and cruel as his was. That was a giving. But, you did feel a little bit mad at the thought.

^

You didn’t find the Dweller. It found you.

It was a simple chance of fate when you were still among the frozen bodies, busy counting up how many there were and was not liking the number when your eyes landed on the Dweller. You were surprised, you couldn’t deny that. You had started to think you were the only ghostly thing before you were found by the Dweller.

It hovered there, staring at you. From deep in your mind, you recalled how your mother would tell stories of lost souls of the forest. Of young children who wandered away from how and got lost and turned into Dwellers. You knew the forest was magical, you were told so nearly every day and had witnessed a few of these magical claims yourself.

But you had never seen a Dweller until now.

It was then as more and more Dwellers came out from hiding and started to surround you that you knew you were not the only one who came back as a ghost.

^

The Dwellers followed you around. You didn’t tell them to, they just do. You didn’t know why though. Maybe they sense who you really are? Maybe they felt safe around you? Or maybe they thought you knew what to do or where to go. It was a silly thought, but you didn’t have the heart to send them away.

Not that you had a heart now. But you get the idea.

What mattered now was to get away. Somewhere far from this place and from **_HER_**. Where exactly you didn’t know. You led the Dwellers far from what was once their homes in life, leading them to the bridge and into the forest. You notice how the ice seemed to just stop near the bridge.

The manor was surrounded by small mountains if you remembered correctly. You don’t know why but you feel that you needed to make sure that the ice didn’t get any farther than it was now.

But what could you do? You were dead and just woke up recently. You didn’t know how to keep **_HER_** from coming after you. You look at the stone bridge and was suddenly hit with déjà vu. You remember this bridge. This was where you first met **_HER_**. Where you feel in love and everything spiraling out of control.

You feel sad. You feel sick. But most of all, you feel **ANGER**. Then, before you knew it, the bridge was in two. It took you a long time to come to your senses about what just happened, though one thing was clear as you led the Dwellers into the forest.

No bridge could be split in two in a clean cut above a chasm that wasn’t there before.

^

Slowly you learned stuff about yourself in your new permanent body. You were a shadow, that you got easily, but you could be MORE. Specifically, you can take many forms and shapes to whatever you pleased with no limits. You could grow to heights that you never thought possible, or shrink to the smallest pebble. You can make things come out of thin air and make these sort of pocket dimensions and teleport anywhere that you desired. You were slowly starting to like this new dead life.

As you learned about yourself, you learned how to control it. And as you controlled it, you got better at it. Soon you were an expert at your new powers. Now the question was, what to do with them?

You didn’t really have a plan now that you were dead. Can’t go back to law school as a ghost. And to be fair, you didn’t like the idea of leaving the Subcon. The last time you did led to this disaster. No. You have to stay here and make sure that the Dwellers and the forest were safe from any harm that may come.

Though, the more you think about it, the more you realize that you can’t keep the whole forest guarded without some extra pairs of eyes keeping watch. You could make copies of yourself, but quickly dismiss it as that would take a lot of energy to do. Maybe the Dwellers could help? No, impossible. Dwellers could only float around and at best possess a cherry to make them into bombs. Plus, you can’t really have a decent talk with someone who’s mute now, can you?

You slump against a tree, thinking very hard on what to do. Different ideas come and go, and not one of them seemed any good when you thought about them thoroughly. Long hours passed before you gave up. You couldn’t think of a good plan.

With a sigh, you decided that patrolling the forest was the best to do for now.

^

Many days passed before you came up with an idea that could work.

Sacks. Loads of them. Filled with grains that were stored away for coming winters in homes and storage mills. Only now they were stored away with no use and no purpose now that everyone was gone.

You smiled as you lifted an empty sack up. You remembered how your mother had taught you how you to make little dolls out of martial when you were young and bored. Back then you didn’t see the use of it, but now you silently thank your mother as you gathered every sack you can find.

With some thread, needles, and cotton for filling, you set to work making some life size dolls. A few trails and errors later, you finished making the first doll that you were satisfied with and made the other dolls exactly like it. They weren’t perfect, but you know these will do.

Now, all that was left was to make sure that your new minions would forever obey you so that you didn’t have any sort of trouble in the near or far future.

^

You were quite gleeful when the first Dweller signed the contract, binding their loyalty and service to you forever in exchange for a body. They were hesitant towards the doll, but when they possessed it, the results were perfect! The doll’s whole body turned purple, and before you knew it they were standing and talking and jumping about with joy. That was enough to get more Dwellers to sign the contracts.

Soon you had an army of minions. Though, you didn’t count the fact that you didn’t have enough doll bodies for _every_ Dweller. Which disappointed you when the last body was taken and there were still plenty of Dwellers. Oh well. You had plenty of minions. You didn’t mind if there were Dwellers in the forest. If you found the time and material in the future, you could make more dolls then.

^

The minions get around to calling you boss.

It was wired at first, but you soon get used to it as you found yourself like being called that instead of your majesty. You are really enjoying this dead life really well. But, not all things were very peaceful as you would like to be.

As it turned out, your cousin decided to drop by one day.

You never liked your cousin. He was older than you, stronger than you, always wanting to roughhouse with you every chance he got, and he always made a complete fool out of you when you were both young kids.

You glared menacingly at him from the shadows as he strutted around like he owned the pecking place. He didn’t seemed fazed by the change that Subcon had gone through and what was more that he scoffed at your minions! YOUR minions! Your claws dig deep in the wood.

You follow him till he reached the bridge. He looks at confused, then huffs. He comments how you had made a mess of things and brought disgrace to the royal family line by not even fixing the bridge to welcome him and you see red when he disgraces your mother.

In a blink of an eye, your cousin is dead.

His body was laid out like a broken mannequin on the ground and his soul in your claws. Grabbing the body by the foot, you toss it down into the chasm where it would never be found. The soul was pulsing in your claws, silently screaming at you. You take one look at it, and then swallow it whole.

That’s when you discovered how tasty souls were.

^

The years rolled by and you are living the high life.

You had found a nice hallow tree that has a face in it and made it your cozy little home. People outside of Subcon have heard of the rumors and tales and now your forest has been steered clear from for many years except for the one or two that dared enter your home. It was funny watching them squirm and beg for their lives as you force them to do your bidding.

You feel as nothing can oppose you now.

Or so you thought.

But one day, you start noticing how your minions are diminishing.  You knew how many minions you had, you had counted them yourself. And yet now there were less of them than what you originally had. Something didn’t feel right.

Even some of the Dwellers had gone missing. Another red flag. So you did what anyone would do. You go out searching for your missing minions when they don’t come to your summoning.

It’s takes days before you find the culprit.

Though, you wished you hadn’t.

The culprit is a living corpse. Thin, tall, blue skin, wearing an awfully familiar red suit with shackles on their wrist. The head was an odd shape. It reminds you of some sort of mask shape. It’s shoveled shaped with one side having some sort of extension sticking out from the top.

They great you like an old friend, but you demand that they leave and give back all your minions and Dwellers. They laugh at you, claiming that they were only taking what was theirs and theirs alone. That makes something inside you snap.

You fling yourself at the corpse, slashing you claws at their face. They didn’t expect the attack and get slashed under their eyes. They quickly recovered from the shock and the fight begins.

It quickly comes to you that the corpse must have just woken up recently as you fight them. You notice how sluggish and slow they were and how weak their attacks were when they managed to land a hit on you. But you know you had the upper hand in this fight. You had time to practice your powers and perfect them.

And the corpse realized this to too late. Summoning magic underneath them, they screamed in agony as you blasted their legs into oblivion. You smiled as the corpse laid out on the ground, defeated. But you wanted to make sure they remembered WHO exactly was boss of this forest.

Extending your claws, you jammed them into the corpse’s eyes, pulling them out of their sockets and watching the corpse wiggle and scream in agony. Once you had the eyes in your hands, you crushed them and tossed the remains away.

“ **In all honesty, I wouldn’t have gone such lengths.** ” You said, moving away from the corpse as they held their face in pain. “ **But when someone goes as far as to mess with my forest and its residents, I think it’s safe to say that I will never forgive those forcing them under their command.** ” You growl lowly, leaving the corpse behind the wither in pain.


End file.
